Atrocities Of The Orient (1959)

1959 - Atrocities Of The Orient (US version: Film Import Company/Social Service Pictures)

[Original production date estimated at 1948-49, also known as “Outrages Of The Orient”, “Atrocities Of Manila”, “Beast Of The East”, and in Greece as “I Kitrini Maska”]

Director/Writer Carlos Vander Tolosa, [US version] William H. Jansen Producer Don Jesus Cacho Editor [US version] Lloyd Friedgen Cinematography William H. Jansen Music Julio Esteban Anguita Orchestrations Bernardino F. Custodio Assistant Director Luis Galasanz Sound Charles Gray

Cast Linda Estrella Fernando Royo Mona Lisa, Teddy Benavides [Alma] Rosa Aguirre Bimbo Danao

Clumsily spliced together from at least three different productions, Atrocities Of The Orient is one of those fascinating specimens of exploitation cinema that is entertaining simply because it is so bad!

The opening scenes are reminiscent of a South Pacific musical - happy villagers singing and going about their daily chores in a tropical setting. The action then abruptly shifts to mayhem as the Japanese army attacks the village, murdering, raping and pillaging. Then, just as abruptly, we are plunged into a slow-moving melodrama regarding two enlisted brothers and their struggles during wartime. Thereafter comes POW brutality, miscellaneous love stories, titillating tidbits and attempts at humor, all chopped together without a care for consistency of narrative.

Purportedly a dramatization of the Japanese invasion of the Philippines during World War II, Atrocities Of The Orient becomes something quite different: a surreal pastiche of horror, action, ham-fisted melodrama, stock footage, and even lame attempts at comedy, book-ended by sober narration that is apropos of nothing. Don't miss it!

Michael J. Weldon’s review from Psychotronic Magazine:

After a narrated intro and a musical number by happy Filipino villagers (similar to Indian movie segments) the main story is about the Japanese occupation (some actual news footage is used), two rival brothers and some captured freedom fighters. The Japanese Col. (“There is only one God, the Emperor Of Japan!”) orders (mostly offscreen) bayonet deaths and decapitations. Eve, a tough lady guerrilla leader shoots one of her own men for punishment. There’s even a comedy relief Sgt. character. In (second language) English but whole conversations are in Japanese. The topless women running and some other sequences were awkwardly edited in for the U.S. exploitation release. The David Friedman Roadshow Rarity release is from a 59 re-issue. It still played theatres in the 70s!

Patrick L. Cooney’s review from the Vernon Johns Society website:

Southern Luzon. Before the Japanese occupation of the Philippines, life was simple and good. All that changed with the coming of the Japanese in World War II. As the resistance to the Japanese occupation became stronger, the Japanese became even more cruel than usual.

The native residents sing while they pound some type of seed. The narrator then speaks of Corregidor, the Gibraltar of the Philippines, the old fortress blasted to a heap of ruble. Then the narrator shows a military cemetery: "Here lay our dead: Philippine and American, buried together."

Planes roll over the Philippines skies and start bombing the cities. There is a great deal of fire in the city. And there are firefights breaking out between the invading Japanese and the Philippine and American resistance. A Japanese soldier invades a house and when the old man there tries to protect the women of the house the soldier bayonets him. Captain Antonio Cruz knocks out the Japanese soldier. He then goes in to a bedroom to speak with his wife. More Japanese come into the house and threaten the women. Captain Antonio hears the women screaming. He shoots his wife dead. He opens the door and the Japanese start to pour in. He has no more bullets so he has to jump out the bedroom window to survive. Some of the women run out of the house, one naked from the waist up. A Japanese soldier pursues her, but she either jumps or falls of the cliff to her death.

Filipino Colonel Cruz is in critical condition at the underground hospital. Before dying he writes a note to his son. It says: "Lt. Carlos Cruz: Fight to the last. Tell mother everything is all right. Father." He dies. Lt. Carlos Cruz receives the letter. Then he hears his mother calling him. They hug each other. She comments on how ruthless the Japanese are. Mom then tells Carlos that he dropped a letter. Carlos picks it up, but he won't tell her what it really says. Mom asks him if he has seen his brother Antonio. Carlos tells her not to mention his brother's name. "As far as I'm concerned, he's dead. He stole the woman I love." Carlos has someone take his mother and the others to a place of relative safety.

Carlos Cruz brings in some natives and a dead woman. But the bombing gets so close to them that they all have to leave the area. Carlos goes to a field hospital and sees a woman he really likes, Nurse Carmen. Carmen likes him too, but she won't get serious with him because he still is hung up over his brother's wife. As they talk, his brother Antonio brings in the dead body of his wife. Carlos can't believe his ears when Antonio admits that he killed his wife: better that, he says, than leaving her to suffer at the hands of the Japanese. Carlos and Antonio start to fight each other, but they are broken up. Mom wants them to reconcile but that seems impossible. Antonio leaves.

Captain Cruz receives a message from headquarters to surrender to the nearest Japanese outpost. Cruz tells his men: "We'll never surrender." A wounded soldier comes back to the Philippine defense line in the area and tells the captain that there is a Japanese machine gun nest about a mile up the road. The captain asks for three volunteers and he gets them. The three attack the nest. The first soldier throws a hand grenade which hits its mark, but not before he is shot and killed. The hand grenade explodes and kills many of the Japanese soldiers. The second Philippine soldier goes to check on the nest. He is shot and dies, but he does manage to shoot and kill the Japanese soldier that shot him. The last Philippine soldier now goes to check on things. A Japanese survivor throws a knife into his back. The Philippine soldier is able to kill his killer.

Lt. Carlos Cruz and his men also decide not to surrender. The Japanese attack them in force and many are killed. The lieutenant and about 8 or 9 of his men are captured. The Japanese Colonel asks the lieutenant why did he not follow the orders from his superiors to surrender. The lieutenant doesn't say anything is reply. The Colonel tells him that he understands and says he likes the lieutenant. One of the captives shoots a Japanese soldier and he in turn is killed by an enemy soldier. The line of Philippine soldiers then are forced to bow to the Japanese flag.

One of the Filipinos is taken out of line and beheaded by the second in command. A crazy Filipino sneaks up behind the Colonel and steals a pistol. When the crazed man kills a Japanese soldier, the Japanese Colonel kills him. A chaplain steps out of line to say some words over the crazy fellow. For this, he is tied to a tree and then the second in command bayonets him to death. The Japanese killer then cackles over his feat.

The Colonel talks with Carlos. He tells him that the Japanese came to liberate them from the Americans. He adds that Bataan has fallen and soon Corregidor will surrender. If the lieutenant cooperates, he and his men will not be killed. Some of the Japanese enlisted men start to chase the Philippine nurses. For this offense, the second in command punishes the sergeant involved by hitting him and knocking him down several times. Lt. Carlos thanks the Colonel for having the sergeant punished, but also tells the Colonel to leave nurse Carmen alone because she is his fiancé.

At a Japanese check point, when a Filipino tries to prevent the Japanese from taking his rice that he needs to feed his children, the Japanese guard bayoneted him for his protest.

Captain Antonio hears some noise down by the river. He readies his men for an attack. But they find out that the noise is made by a lovely Philippine woman swimming in the river. The men cat call and whistle at her. She does not care for this at all. She thinks they are Japanese. She is actually a Colonel in rank and has 11 men with her. She goes to the attack against the invaders, only to find out that they are also Philippine. She is still mad because of the cat calls. Her name is Colonel Eve. She slaps Captain Antonio for gawking at her. She then suggests that they combine the two commands under her leadership. Antonio accepts.

The misbehaving Japanese sergeant has still not learned his lesson. He leads the exercises for the nurses and male medical staff. Then he starts flirting with the nurses. To make things worse, he tells them all to give him their watches. As he is bragging to them about his prowess in the army, the second in command comes up to him. The sergeant immediately starts giving the women back their watches. The second in command threatens to stab the sergeant with his sword, but the nurses scream so much at the idea that he relents.

Under the command of Colonel Eve, the group attacks a village housing Japanese soldiers. It is a successful raid, but they lose three men. She asks who was the man in charge of the now dead men. She then shoots and kills the man in charge. She figures that she should eliminate him now and avoid the loss of three more men the next day.

The Japanese Colonel asks Lt. Carlos who were the forces making the attacks on Japanese posts. Carlos says its Philippine guerrillas. When the Colonel starts getting read to take some offensive action, Carlos knocks out the Colonel. A Filipino soldier grabs some Japanese documents. He rushes out, but the alarm is sounded. The Filipino is shot, but he succeeds in handing off the documents to another Filipino. The Japanese then capture the wounded man and torture him. The captured man and others like him are saved from the Japanese, by an attack on the P.O.W. facilities. They get their men out of there.

Eve personally leads the next charge. She is a little upset about not finding true love in her life and decides to be a bit reckless. She gets shot for her recklessness. Antonio tries to comfort her. He tells her he loves her. Eve asks: "Why didn't you say so in the first place? This could have all been avoided." She then asks Antonio for a kiss good-bye. They kiss. She dies.

American and Philippine soldiers parachute onto the Philippines. American and Philippine troops push forward. Up goes the American flag, a welcome sight.

The narrator says: "Yes, many died so we may live."

Not that great of a movie. The quality of the film on the DVD was poor. There were scenes so dark you couldn't see anything. The acting was o.k., but nothing special. And the title of the movie is a bit misleading. There are definitely atrocities in the movie, but it did not live up to they hype I read in some of the reviews. Especially the Japanese crimes against women, were not covered that much. It's more of a Philippine guerrilla fighting movie than anything else, along with scenes of Japanese excesses. In one sense, the Japanese get off lightly because they do have two scenes with the sergeant being punished for his trying to mess with the women. I did like the title of the movie. My version was "Atrocities in the Orient". And atrocities is a good name for the behavior of the Japanese in Asia and the South Pacific.

Forbidden Women (1949)

1949 - Forbidden Women (X’Otic Films)

[Philippines release date 23rd September 1949, original Philippines title “The Thirteenth Sultan”]

Director Eduardo de Castro Cinematography Steve Perez Music Josefino Cenizal, Apolinar Rojas Sound Recordist Demetrio Carianga, [US version] Charles Gray Editor Braulio R. Calma Re-Editing/Additional Footage [US version] Lloyd Friedgen Assistant Director Tor Reyes Art Director Zinado A. Salceda Wardrobe Lolita Munoz

Cast Fernando Poe [Sr], Berting “La Bra”/Labra, Mona Lisa, Fernando Royo, Luningning, Bimbo Danao [IMDB also lists Conchita Montes in Forbidden Women, and Carol Varga in The Thirteenth Sultan]

From John Santos’ article “The Lost and Found Box: Rediscovering a Cinematic Tradition” from his Sinehan Sa Kanto blog:

The other extreme of Philippine cinema could be of help as well. On the one hand there’s the political consciousness of the films of the 60s through the 80s. On the other there’s the exploitation films not only of the 70s and the 80s where Cleopatra Wong and Weng Weng reigned, or the 60s where Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero slummed it with Roger Corman’s exploitation film outfits, but also the “Golden Age of Exploitation,” the 30s and the 40s when films from other countries, especially the “Orient,” were brought to American shores, cut, re-cut, scenes added, even multiple movies merged, and shown in seedy theatres as shocking views of an alien world.

One particular character is Lloyd Friedgen. As an enterprising producer, he traveled to Asia’s more active filmmaking industries—that is, the studios of the Philippines and India—to take films that could possibly attract an audience in the US. Two films he “discovered” that are now known amongst cult film enthusiasts are Forbidden Women (1948) by Eduardo Castro, the mind behind Zamboanga (1937; the print was discovered of all places in Finland) and Outrages of the Orient (1948) by Carlos Vander Tolosa, the man who made Bilanggong Birhen (1960) and Giliw Ko (1939). Of course, these movies were manhandled by Friedgen, cutting dialogue and action continuity and flow, reinserting scenes from other movies or scenes newly filmed by Friedgen to “spice-up” the story. If anything, if not re-done and re-transformed to at least remove scenes that are known to be Friedgen’s and not Castro’s/Tolosa’s, these movies are great windows to what would otherwise remain lost, hidden, and forgotten. Tracking Friedgen’s history, his dealings with other producers like him (especially another producer, Ray Friedgen, although I’m thinking they are the same person or possibly he is Lloyd’s father), and possibly any existing archive of his movies could uncover an interesting goldmine of unseen—but unfortunately molested—Filipino films.

Casey Scott’s review on the DVD Drive-In website:

FORBIDDEN WOMEN is a Filipino production imported to the U.S. and sold as an exploitation film. Strangely, it was also shot in English, not Tagalog, the Filipino language. Following an education abroad, young Prince Sigore returns to his South Pacific island kingdom to take over the throne. However, he finds that his black widow sister-in-law, an evil schemestress, intends to take the kingdom for herself!

Thankfully FORBIDDEN WOMEN is only 62 minutes, as it’s a very talky attempt at creating a Hollywood epic on a Filipino budget. The lavish sets and costumes, cultural dances, and political script are impressive, but it’s surprising to think that anyone in the U.S. would have purchased this film for distribution! But distributor Lloyd Friedgen shot new sequences of topless women (the FORBIDDEN ones of the title, I assume) to spice up the film and ensure it would sell as a roadshow attraction; the brief torture chamber sequence probably helped, too. In other words, skip this one and watch FORBIDDEN ADVENTURE again.

Stuart Glabraith IV’s review on the DVD Talk website:

Something Weird Video deserves a medal of some kind for rescuing from oblivion dozens, if not hundreds of fringe market movies that they quite rightly regard as historically significant examples of the type of PT Barnum-type showmanship worth preserving. The two features in this "Taboo Double Feature," Forbidden Adventure (1935) and Forbidden Women (1949), are esthetically awful but quite fascinating in other ways not intended. Both are in surprisingly good shape (though the extensive stock footage in the former is often pretty terrible) and, par for the course, Something Weird has supplemented this package with another hour or so of extra features, including an entirely different cut of Forbidden Adventure that was released in Britain.

…The 62-minute Forbidden Women is another curio. Apparently this is a Filipino production, possibly with American input and, at the very least, features scenes of obviously American strippers crudely inserted into the narrative. Though set on an "unknown island in the South Pacific," Forbidden Women's familiar tale of palace intrigue is set in a mythical kingdom more Siamese than Polynesian (and its citizens are explicitly Islamic). Prepubescent Prince Sigore (Bimbo Danao? the cast goes unidentified), a Filipino cross between Sabu and Bobby Blake, returns to his kingdom as heir to the throne. His arrival is heralded in the film's big musical number, curiously similar to the Danny Kaye number "(You'll Never) Outfox the Fox" from The Court Jester (1956). However, the Sultan's evil cousin and sister-in-law conspire to take power by poisoning the ruler and discrediting Prince Sigore. It's a frame-up as the Prince is caught red-handed in the Ladies-Only Temple of the Golden Chamber, home to the Forbidden Women.

Where did Forbidden Women come from? Was it a wholly Filipino production with American inserts or primarily an American production shot in the Philippines? Is its story typical of the kinds of films popular in the Philippines in 1948, or tailor-made for a perceived foreign market? Whatever the answer, the film was shot entirely in English, though one assumes that many in the cast were primarily Tagalog speakers, as the performances are uniformly terrible. The sets are elaborate but cheaply-made and the action crudely realized. But some in the cast, especially the actors playing Prince Sigore, his attendant (a Filipino Smiley Burnette, complete with blank, wall-eyed stares), and the Sultan are likable.

Bill Gibron’s review at the DVD Verdict website:

At least Forbidden Women doesn't deny its jerry-rigged joys. When producer Lloyd Friedgen traveled to a post-World War II Philippines looking for films to release, he struck Polynesian paydirt with this tropical island melodrama. Beginning with a sufficiently strange musical number (that's right, our proto-political potboiler is also a saccharine songfest) about life as a "merry hunter" and ending with a free-for-all battle that's more action-packed than a post-millennial summer blockbuster, all Friedgen had to do was import some erotic eye candy and he believed he had a horny hit on his hands. Yet instead of hiring exotic-looking dancers who could cinematically mingle with the rest of the decidedly ethnic cast, our flawed filmmaker hired girls from some skid-row burlesque house and forced them to flop around in their decidedly Caucasian accoutrements. The result is immediately obvious. One moment, we are watching a wise old Asian woman speak in a clipped Confucius-like manner concerning laws and tradition. The next, a barmaid from Queens is shaking her fans and exposing her cellulite. The fact that all of this is happening in front of a whisper-thin pre-teen prince who is visiting the Golden Chamber (read: Bali brothel) as part of his "continuing education in preparation for becoming Sultan" says more for the original film's perverted premise than Friedgen's post-production pandering.

Indeed, a lot of Forbidden Women plays like an overripe cautionary tale about the ability of power to corrupt and the inability of island people to settle their differences without poisonings and armed fisticuffs. The rather sedate Sultan may be one heck of a leader, but his son with big ideas wants to cause all kinds of trouble (he's been off being schooled by the colonialist white men, don't you know). He believes in concepts like equality, freedom, humanity, and justice. Naturally this puts him at odds with relatives that would rather kill than share with the impoverished. The complicated coup d'etat, which requires slowly filling the leader with homemade toxins while feeding his snot-nosed offspring to the sharks (!!!), begins without a hitch, but our adolescent agitator throws a big fat monarchal monkey wrench into things when one of his assassins turns spineless. He can't kill a kid, no matter how much wealth, security, and political power it means for him. No, the assassin vows loyalty to the future sovereign, takes him to his uncharted home island, and even hooks him up with his own prepubescent daughter. After favoring us with a powerful love ballad about the "magical moonlight," his tiny highness prepares to kick some backstabber butt. Yet while his armies are fighting, all he does is "haunt" his evil aunt (she thinks he's dead, remember?) and warns his pop against any more toxic treats. Having long since forgotten its strip-show sequences, Forbidden Women ends just as oddly as it began.